Bulbophyllum levinei

This plant flowered at the end of May.  The Covid-19 pandemic caused lots of changes for our lives (home-schooling a kid, canceled summer camps etc.), and I haven't gotten around posting this blog post until now.  Even thought it is expected that a new disease will pop up now and then, but I've never thought that we would experience the pandemic of such a large scale in our lifetime.  We shouldn't take this lightly since so many lives are lost, but it is a unique experience to learn how people and the society respond to pandemics.

Going back to the plant, I noticed Bulbophyllum japonicum (Laos) listed in 2019 price-list of NT Orchids. B. japonicum is from Japan, Taiwan, and China, and I was skeptical that the distribution wouuld stretch to Laos.  So I had to get it to see what it it.  When the flowers opened in May 2020, it was obviously miss-identification.  Going through the orchid checklist of Laos (Schuiteman et al. 2008), I quickly learned that it is B. levinei.  Good thing that they told us the locality!  It is usually much easier to find the correct identification if all vendors would supply the location where the plant was originated from!  It is a compact plant and the flowers are small, but it appears to make fair number of flower shoots.

This species also occurs in Southern China and Vietnam (Flora of China). I don't have an access to information about this species, but Flora of China contains the description and illustrations.  It says that it occurs around 800m of elevation.  I have been growing at a cool-end of intermediate temperature; the max/min daily temperature is 29/18C (84/65F) in the summer and 21/13C (70/55F) in the winter.  But it might be better a little warmer. It is growing at a fairly low light (PPFD of 50 µmol m^-2 s^-1), but it might do better with more light.

It is in a 3" diameter pot.

The ruler is metric, and each increment is 1mm.  Dorsal sepal, right petal, and right  lateral sepal are showing the adaxial (front) surface.  The left petal and lateral sepal are showing the abaxial surface (back side, facing the ovary).

Top surface of the lip

Column, ovary, and column foot.

Literature Cited:

• Schuiteman, A., Bonnet, P., Svengsuksa, B., & Barthélémy, D. (2008). An annotated checklist of the Orchidaceae of Laos. Nordic Journal of Botany, 26(5‐6), 257-316.  (link to full text)